Parliament debate on Operation Sindoor shows Indian democracy is ‘reeling' away

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2 days ago

At 10.32 pm on Monday, Rajasthan MP Hanuman Beniwal rose to speak in the Lok Sabha. Six minutes in, the chair rang a bell to let him know that he was running out of time. This piqued the Jat leader.
'What has happened?' he asked. 'You gave me a chance so late in the night anyway. It is certain that I won't be in the newspapers tomorrow. I will have to make do with social media.'
Beniwal's reaction encapsulates how elected representatives seem to increasingly be approaching debates in Parliament. Rather than making substantive interventions, many MPs are choosing to deliver a series of snippets tailored for social media – specifically, video-sharing platforms like YouTube and Instagram.
This tendency was on full display during the much anticipated discussion on Operation Sindoor this week. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh set the tone for the debate by sidestepping the contentious issue of India losing aircraft during the strikes.
'We determine if a child has done well in an examination by looking at the results,' Singh argued. 'Only his marks should matter to us. Not how many pencils he broke or how many pens he lost.'
The clever metaphor worked well for the mainstream media but not for Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha cited public comments made by Army personnel to suggest that the government's tactics were to blame for the alleged loss of equipment.
In response, Anurag Thakur of the Bharatiya Janata Party asked for Gandhi's position to be rechristened 'Leader of Opposing Bharat' and called his party 'Islamabad National Congress'. News agency ANI deemed these 'fiery' comments reel-worthy.
Not to be outdone, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, while trying to pin responsibility for the security lapses in Pahalgam on the ruling party, decided to name the terror victims one by one for effect.
This was the opportunity for theatrics. Each time Vadra uttered a name, BJP MPs screamed 'Hindu!' Those in the Opposition started chanting 'Indian!' in response. The excruciating clash found a sizeable audience online.
Those who neither belong to the ruling nor the Opposition alliance, such as the Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, sought attention in other ways.
Owaisi had received flak from his supporters for his enthusiastic participation in the all-party delegations that went overseas after Operation Sindoor. He swung the other way in the Lok Sabha, criticising the government's foreign policy and its military preparedness.
But what made waves on social media was his demand that India withdraw from playing a cricket match against Pakistan scheduled in September.
'Does this government have the courage to tell the grieving families that they should watch the cricket match with Pakistan because their loss has been avenged?' Owaisi asked.
The focus on military and foreign policy matters did not stop regional politicians from signalling to their own audiences.
In keeping with the thrust of the Bhasha Andolan launched on July 27 by Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, her MPs spoke in Bangla. To counter them, Bengal leaders of the BJP demonstrated their own proficiency in the language.
It is not as if everything that happened in Parliament this week bordered on the frivolous. Representatives from Jammu and Kashmir as well as Punjab – two regions that bore the brunt of the recent fighting between India and Pakistan – made critical interventions. Their speeches fell through the cracks.
The MP from Amritsar, for example, flagged the 'politicisation' of the armed forces. He was referring to controversial claims about protecting the Golden Temple during Operation Sindoor made by a senior Army officer. His turn to speak came after midnight though.
Perhaps the most important speech of the monsoon session was delivered by Mian Altaf Ahmad of the J&K National Conference. His constituency includes Pahalgam, Poonch and Rajouri – places which accounted for the bulk of casualties before and during Operation Sindoor.
Ahmad prayed that the region does not experience conflict again. But he also pleaded with the home minister to provide bulletproof ambulances and bunkers in the area before future wars. 'We have to make arrangements so that the next time something like this happens, decent, innocent people don't get caught in the crossfire,' he hoped.
Not quite the stuff that flies on Instagram reels or YouTube shorts.
Here is a summary of last week's top stories.
Trump and New Delhi. United States President Donald Trump said that he does not care about 'what India does with Russia' and that 'they can take their dead economies down together, for all I care'.
The comment came a day after he announced on Wednesday that Washington will impose a 25% tariff on goods imported from India from August 1. He also said that India will have to pay a 'penalty' for buying military equipment and oil from Russia amid the war on Ukraine.
However, on Thursday, Trump said that his administration is still negotiating final tariff rates with New Delhi.
He also announced that the US would help develop Pakistan's 'massive' oil reserves. 'Who knows, maybe they'll be selling oil to India some day!' the US president said on social media.
Malegaon blast case. A court in Mumbai has acquitted Bharatiya Janata Party leader Pragya Singh Thakur, Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Purohit and five others in the 2008 Malegaon blast case. The court held that the prosecution had failed to establish their guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
Six persons were killed and around 100 were injured when an explosive device strapped to a motorcycle went off near a mosque in Malegaon in northern Maharashtra on September 29, 2008. The court said there was no evidence that Thakur owned or was in possession of the vehicle.
The court directed the Maharashtra government to pay Rs 2 lakh as compensation to the families of those who died in the blast and Rs 50,000 to those who were injured.
Crimes against women. Former Janata Dal (Secular) MP Prajwal Revanna has been convicted in a rape case. The judge held that Revanna was guilty of raping a 48-year-old worker employed at the Revanna family's farmhouse and recording the assault.
The quantum of punishment is likely to be announced on Saturday. This is the first verdict in four cases that have been filed against Revanna, the grandson of former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda. Three women have filed sexual assault cases against Revanna. The fourth case involves charges of sexual harassment, stalking and criminal intimidation under the Indian Penal Code.
He was suspended from the Janata Dal (Secular) in April 2024 after videos of alleged sexual assaults on several women, allegedly recorded by Revanna himself, surfaced. He was arrested on May 31, 2024.
Johanna Deeksha writes about .
Pahalgam terrorists killed. Union Home Minister Amit Shah told Parliament that three terrorists involved in the Pahalgam terror attack were killed on Monday in a security operation codenamed Operation Mahadev. The Army had said on Monday that it had killed three suspected militants in the Lidwas meadows of Srinagar's Dara area.
Shah claimed on Tuesday that the men, identified as Suleiman Shah, Afghan and Jibran, were members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group. They were identified as having been involved in the Pahalgam attack by those who had provided them shelter, said the minister.
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